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Local government: Consents and inspection services

Industry-wide customer experience study of

Consents and inspection services
Running live from July 2022 to June 2023

Helping councils reduce risk and set priorities for service improvement

CTMA is conducting an update to its industry-wide customer experience baseline study of consent and inspection services.  Running throughout the year, from July 2022 to June 2023, the study cuts through the “customer satisfaction” rhetoric to help councils identify sources of dissatisfaction, reduce risk, and set priorities for service quality improvement.

Background, risks and rewards

When customers experience problems with their consent applications or with building code compliance, it can increase processing costs for councils and be a drain on their resources, cause project delays and increase compliance costs for customers, and in extreme cases it can lead to a negative impact a region’s housing availability and on the local economy by influencing developers to make future investments elsewhere instead.  We've even seen cases where developers have vowed to avoid future projects in areas where they’ve had difficulty working with a local council.

Councils work hard to meet a range of KPIs with their consents and inspection services, but typically only get to review their performance from their customers’ perspective, as part of an annual residents survey.

But for many, although the annual residents survey provides a customer satisfaction score, the significant shortfall is that they often:

• Fail to express performance in terms of strategic council outcome objectives
• Fail to identify specific actions needed to improve customer experiences, and…
• Fail to set the priorities that would provide the best return on service improvement investment

 
This often results in somewhat subjective KPIs and targets, and an improvement strategy driven by a sometimes vague and unrewarding directive to “try harder next year!”

Three things this study provides that councils are looking for:

In contrast, CTMA’s customer experience studies provide in-depth, council-specific insights into what specific actions need to be taken to have the biggest impact on reducing council risks, reducing problems for customers, and improving customer satisfaction.

The consents and inspections study identifies:

• The potential impact of the council's current customer experiences
• Strategic priorities to reduce those risks
• Specific sources of customer dissatisfaction, prioritised by their potential impact on public outcomes

Councils taking part in the CTMA studies over a four year period achieved an average improvement in customer satisfaction of 23 index points, compared to survey responses from customers of non-participating councils that only showed an average improvement of 4 index points.  Over this same period, participating councils showed an average reduction in customers experiencing problems of 33 percentage points.

Actionable insights and improvements achieved

The CTMA studies deliver much more than a simple customer satisfaction score and performance index.  They are designed to provide each participating council with specific and actionable findings in its own confidential council-specific reports.

Running throughout the year, from July 2022 to June 2023, the study provides each participating council with an in-depth, council-specific, end-of-study report for each of these three key services (resource consents, building consents and building inspection services).  In addition, where sufficient responses will allow, interim quarterly updates will be produced to summarise high-level trends and to help monitor and manage ongoing performance.

Why? Local councils are emerging from an old paradigm of an “annual residents’ survey”, towards the need for a more cost-effective and actionable approach to measuring and managing service quality.  Already working hard to meet a range of KPIs with consent and inspection services, councils need more structured and comprehensive feedback from customers to help set priorities for improvement.	What? The consent and inspection studies provide actionable council-specific reports that quantify customer satisfaction, identify specific sources of dissatisfaction that can have the biggest impact on council support and customer success, and assess the council’s effectiveness dealing with customer complaints and concerns.	How? The study involves five simple steps leading from measurement to management action. Using a combination of online and (optional) mail-based surveys, the study provides confidential, council-specific insights to help the regulatory team identify and prioritise what needs to be done to improve service quality.
Now! If you are looking for more actionable customer feedback to help improve service and drive council and customer success, just click here to access the online registration form and register your council now.   Let’s talk If you'd like to arrange a more detailed discussion about the study prior to registration, please contact us to schedule a call:	With a participation fee of only $6,870 (+GST) for each of the three studies... Resource Consents Building Consents Building Inspection Services   ...this is a unique and cost-effective opportunity to establish a council-specific baseline of customer satisfaction and identify your customer-driven improvement priorities. (For clarity, this represents a discount of approximately 90% of the fee normally charged to an individual commercial organisation for this type of study). The industry-wide nature of this study also helps to establish a national baseline of customer satisfaction in the sector and provide participating councils with an independent measure of their relative position compared to other (unnamed) councils.

 

How the study works

During a 12 month period, the study asks customers about the service they have received from their local council in the processing of resource consents, building consents, and the provision of building inspection services.

It’s conducted using a combination of online and (optional) mail-based surveys, and produces confidential council-specific reports for each participating council.

Registration and design phase

During this initial period, councils register as participants in the study and the design of the survey is finalised.  CTMA works closely with industry bodies and participating councils on the design of the study to ensure its focus maintains council and customer relevance. 

The study then involves five simple steps leading from measurement to management action:

Measurement: Between July 2022 - June 2023						Analysis: June/July 2023		Action: July 2023
Step1	►	Step 2	►	Step 3	►	Step 4	►	Step 5
Councils invite their customers to take part in the study		Customers respond via CTMA’s customer feedback website (or by mail)		CTMA collects and processes online and mail-based responses		CTMA analyses the responses and reports on the study findings		CTMA conducts council briefings helping to identify improvement opportunities
Invitations to customers Participating councils invite their customers to take part in the study by  sending them an email or a letter, explaining the objectives of the study. Letters and emails include an Internet link to the on-line questionnaires. This is done on an ongoing basis throughout the year - a week or two after each consent is granted and after issuing each code compliance certificate. By inviting their own qualifying customers from their internal records, councils are able to ensure that a significant number of customers is contacted whilst also preserving their customers’ individual privacy. For councils wishing to provide customers with a printed version of the questionnaire for mail-based response, CTMA will produce a council-branded version of the questionnaire (in .pdf format) to be printed and mailed to customers by the council.  This should include a FreePost envelope addressed to CTMA for customers to mail back their responses.		Customers provide feedback Customers submit their feedback about the service they have received from the council. The online questionnaires are hosted on CTMA’s customer feedback website. Mail-based responses are returned directly to CTMA for codification and data capture. Responses are completely confidential and customers are not asked for any personally identifiable information.  A “per-response” fee of $7.00 (+GST) for each questionnaire returned by mail will be charged to councils that wish to use this facility.  (This fee covers FreePost costs and data processing). There are no response fees charged for online customer responses.		Response processing CTMA collects online and mail-based responses from customers throughout the survey period.  Mail-based responses are codified and entered into CTMA’s analytics software and customer comments are transcribed. Online and mail-based responses are combined in preparation for data analysis and reporting.		Analysis and reporting End of study reports Upon completion of the survey period, CTMA analyses customer responses and reports on the findings separately for each participating council in confidential “council-specific” reports.  These reports will be produced in June/July 2023. Bonus interim reports Bonus quarterly interim reports will be produced where sufficient customer responses have been received during the previous quarter.  These brief reports will summarise high-level trends at the council-specific level and help councils monitor and manage ongoing performance.  Quarterly reports will be produced in October 2022, January and April 2023.		Briefings and support Following the study, CTMA will provide a management briefing to each participating council to help them interpret the study findings and plan remedial actions. In addition, CTMA can provide further consultative assistance and report briefings if required. (Fees and costs associated with these services will be agreed on an individual basis).
				Content of the end of study reports: Each participating council receives individual, confidential “council-specific” reports of the study findings in the form of a password protected, printable .pdf file.  (There is a separate report for each of the three studies). In a graphical and tabular format, the reports present relative strengths and improvement opportunities at the individual council and examine four perspectives of service performance: Overall customer satisfaction with the service and the impact satisfaction has on strategic council outcomes such as customer support and advocacy. Problems experienced by customers, identifying specific areas of poor performance and sources of customer dissatisfaction.  This section also helps to identify and prioritise customer concerns in terms of their impact on support and advocacy. Customer contact behaviour (when things go wrong), identifying key aspects of customer complaint and word-of-mouth behaviour. Response effectiveness, providing a measure of the council’s effectiveness responding to customers when they experience a problem or concern.

 

Please note: Council-specific reports are confidential and only made available to the participating council and only to those that have actively and effectively encouraged their customers to take part in the study.  Council-specific findings from one council are not shared with anyone else.

 

How your council can take part

If you are looking for more actionable customer feedback to help reduce costs and drive service improvement, simply register here using the online registration form and we’ll call to discuss the project in more detail:

 

If you would like to arrange a more detailed discussion about the study prior to registration, please contact us to schedule a call:

 

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About CTMA New Zealand Ltd

CTMA is a customer experience and service quality improvement firm with twenty years experience providing advisory and measurement services to help public and private sector organisations improve service to customers.  In addition to its consulting, training, coaching and measurement work with individual clients, CTMA conducts similar industry-wide customer experience baseline studies in sectors such as retail banking, telecommunications, and electricity and gas supply companies.

 

© CTMA New Zealand Ltd.